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If you bring up the topic of eBay promoted listings in a group of resellers, you are likely to hear some mixed messages.  Some aren’t familiar with promoted listings, some sellers use them, and then others can’t wait to tell you how they would never use promoted listings because “Feebay” already charges too many fees.

I recently conducted a Twitter poll asking “If you sell on eBay, do you use promoted listings?”

The results were pretty clear.  The No’s won by a 63/37 margin.  “I already pay enough fees” was the general reason given for those who don’t participate.

So are promoted listings just another fee?  Is that how we should look at them?  Or, is it possible that maybe resellers should look at the eBay Promoted Listings program through a different lens?

Let me take a step back and explain what promoted listings are. 

What are eBay Promoted Listings?

eBay describes promoted listings as a way to help your items stand out among the huge amount of listings on the site which increases the likelihood of making a sale.  There are several levels of complexity when it comes to promoted listings with costs ranging from a couple percentage points of the items selling price up to 15% or 20% in some cases.  Basically, they are a way to pay a little more to get more eyeballs on your items.

This extra 2-20% is where promoted listings critics focus their ire.  They scoff at paying an additional fee over and above the basic final value fees.  This is also where I think those opponents are being short sighted. 

The day after my original poll, I ran a second Twitter poll and asked, “If you sell online, would you pay $20 for an advertisement that would drive $1,000 of additional sales?”

This time, 87% of respondents said Yes.  

Many people commented, “All day”, “No Brainer”, and I even got a “In a New York Minute”.

Well folks, that is exactly what you’re doing with Standard eBay Promoted Listings.  You are essentially taking out ads within the eBay platform to increase the number of customers who see your items and then you only pay the promotion fee if a buyer purchases an item after coming to your store via the promoted listing.

When framed as an “advertisement” it’s a clear yes, but in the context of eBay promoted listings, people view it as an extra fee.

Do eBay Promoted Listings Work?

I used that example because those are the results I’ve seen in my eBay store at a 2% promotion rate.

I initially tested promoted listings for a couple weeks.  I saw $1,050.69 more sales and paid a fee of 20.99.  The next test was for a month at 2% and saw $1,706.04 additional sales for a fee of $34.07.  That’s a huge win in my book. By choosing a small advertising rate, I was able to generate almost $2,000 in sales from customers who saw the ads, came to my store, and bought something from me. Now to be fair, some portion of those sales may have happened anyway. Some of those customers could have bought my items without an ad guiding them to it, but I clearly saw a boost in profits via the program.

Should I use eBay Promoted Listings for all my inventory?

Since my initial tests, I’ve used promoted listings for every listing in my eBay store. I’ve mainly done this because it is super easy to set it up that way. In reality, if you want to spend the time to customize your ad spend, you could be more selective on which listings get ads and which don’t.

They have all kinds of different settings with different features and costs associated. You should be able to find all kinds of articles and YouTube videos explaining the advanced features. For some sellers these extra bells and whistles may be worth it. However, for many, just the basic standard promoted listings are all that are necessary to boost sales.

Do you do promoted listings? Have you considered it from the perspective of an advertisement or have you only thought of it as an additional fee?